You’ve seen them. Teens in Best Buy or shoppers at Target madly scrolling through their smartphone, often walking straight into your shopping cart. A new study shows there’s a pretty good chance they’re not on Twitter or Facebook. They are checking competitive prices, product info, reviews, special offers and more.
Consumers who use their smart phones for product pricing and info research at retail has risen from 34% in 2012 to 73% in 2013, according to a recent study by Local Corporation.
An even higher percentage of consumers (79%) use their smartphone to access information about a local store or restaurant they’d like to visit. These same consumers agree that their smartphone is great for accessing special offers and coupons from retailers.
The study included additional stats, but the key numbers in answers to all questions including, product reviews, competitive pricing, checking for sales and specials, and online orders, had engagement levels among mobile consumers, above 60%.
Retailers, restaurants and all small businesses need to put their customers’ mobile experience first. Step one is making sure your mobile website adapts to different devices and loads quickly. Many consumers are in their cars and are often on slower devices or slow networks. Step two is to get them the information they’re looking for. Having your menu on Yelp next to some flaky customer reviews won’t cut it. You need to start with a well-designed mobile landing page or responsive web site with your business’ basic information.
Once this is in place, you want to make sure all of your business pages on Yelp, Facebook, Yahoo, Google+ include your website link with device detection so that mobile users can find you and get the the info they are searching for.
When you have the basics covered, then you can start adding bells and whistles like mobile optimized menus, email and text message opt-ins, social sharing, photos and product information. The goal is to make sure that you’re in control of your customers mobile experience. If you search for your business and Yelp, Twitter or Facebook show up as the first or second results. that means they are most likely controlling your customer experience on mobile.